Sea Vegetables

[liuzhou]

I’m calling this topic ‘sea vegetables’ rather than ‘seaweed’ as not all the vegetative bounty of the seas or oceans is ‘seaweed’ which, applied strictly, only refers algae. There are other plants down there, including true vegetables with the seeds and flowers that algae lacks and also a largely unknown rich fungi population, as we shall see. ‘Sea vegetables’ also includes vegetation which doesn’t grow in the sea but alongside in salty coastlines and marshlands, therefore depending on the sea.

 

But, that proviso out of the way, it will be mostly seaweed.

 

Japan is known as a primary seaweed consuming nation, but it’s far from the only one. China is too. A large area of my local supermarket is dedicated to the crops from the subaquatic garden, both fresh and dried. In fact, some sources say that the Japanese learned to eat seaweed from the Chinese. Although things like sushi and ramen did come from China, I don’t totally buy the seaweed theory. Most of China is land-locked; Japan is an island nation surrounded by water. Anyway, Japan’s nori industry owes its life to a woman, Kathleen Mary Drew-Baker (1901-1957), from Manchester, England who never visited Japan but is celebrated every year in a Japanese festival known as the Drew Festival (BBC podcast).

 

Ka

Kathleen Mary Drew Baker

 

But for now I’m ignoring nori. Instead, I am looking first at sargassum.

 

One could be forgiven for assuming that this algae is named after the Sargasso Sea where it is prevalent, but in fact it is the other way round. The sea is named after the weed. Sargassum comes from the Portuguese.

 

In 1598, a Mr. W. Phillip wrote that “wee entred into the sea, called Sergasso, which is all couered with hearbes.‥ The hearbe is like Samper [samphire], but yellow of colour.‥ The Portingalles call it Sargasso, because it is like the herbes that groweth in their welles in Portingall, called Sargasso.”

It is also known as gulf weed and is scientifically known as Sargassum bacciferum, aka Sargassum natans or Fucus natans, but there are around 150 different genera.

 

In Japan, there is Sargassum muticum which has now spread to Europe and is found from British Columbia to California. In Europe it now extends along the coasts of Great Britain, France, Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean from Italy and the Adriatic. It has also been recorded from China and Alaska.

 

Websites such as Trip Advisor and the like are full of people complaining that this disgusting, toxic weed which forms massive floating ‘islands’ reaching up to several square kilometres in size has invaded beaches and bays in the Caribbean and around Florida, ruining their ability to enjoy their leisure time and ability to play in their speed boats and whatever other expensive toys they play with.

 

I say “screw them!” Those floating islands are massively important to sea life everywhere, providing a home, temporarily or permanently, to many fish species. The tourists lining up to annoy those cute emerging sea turtle babies in the area and filming them to put on YouTube or Tik Tok are mostly unaware that those new born creatures are rushing to safety in the very algae that they complain about. The seaweed is used as a nursery! Not only by the turtles, but by fish such as mahi mahi, jacks, and amberjacks. Many eels travel thousands of miles to mate in the sargassum ‘islands’.

Also, as the seaweed ages and decays, it sinks to the bottom of the oceans, releasing nutrients and carbon, both essential to sea life and, by extension, all life. This is widely recognised by marine scientists and many of these floating ‘islands’ are actually protected by law, off parts of the USA coast.

 

“Because of its ecological importance, in 2003, Sargassum within U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone off the southern Atlantic states was designated as Essential Fish Habitat, which affords these areas special protection.” - https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/sargassum.html

 

But enough of my ranting. The seaweed is also used in cosmetics, especially facial masks, but more importantly in food and not only for sea life! The Japanese call it ひじき- hijiki (their preferred species is usually S. fusiforme) and they seem to know a thing or two about edible seaweed. The brown or dark green algae with its gas-filled float bladders is very edible! In fact all seaweeds are edible, if not all palatable. All seaweed tends to be healthy and nutritious, but sargassum is particularly known for being high in protein, being even more so than egg whites are.

 

In Chinese it is 马尾藻 (mǎ wěi zǎo, literally ‘horse hair algae’) and is available preserved in salt to be used as a snack or garnish. It is also occasionally used in hotpots or soup. It should surprise no one that, in TCM, it also appears in a powdered form to be made into a drink to cure everything except gullibility.

 

Sargassum

 

I buy this in 2.5 kg (5½ lb) bags, but it doesn't last long. Not because it isn't well preserved; because I eat it!

 

2.5 kg of Sargassum

 

Edited June 13 by liuzhou (log)

[Paul Bacino]

Sweet,

 

When I saw this it made me laugh,  its a recollection I had from Bora Bora.  When  I picked up a sea cucumber,  while diving.

 

Turning into a weird sticky mess . 

 

We  have just started ingesting a seamoss in our diet  " Simsima Seamoss " with wild crafted seamoss?

[liuzhou]

The part of the world least understood by even scientists is the oceans. It is believed that only a small fraction of the life species down there have been studied, whether animal or vegetable. So information on many is limited. However, we do know that in the depths live the world’s most numerous lifeform, fungi, few of which have been identified and named.

 

Dried "Sea Matsutake"

 

This one however, despite a misleading name, is another type of algae, Codium fragile. In Chinese, it is 海松茸 (hǎi sōng róng), sometimes shortened to just 海茸 (hǎi róng). The full name literally translates to ‘sea pine antler’, but the last two characters 松茸 (sōng róng) are also the Chinese for the Japanese favourite, まつたけ (matsutake, which means ‘pine mushroom’). One being fungi and the other an alga, they are unrelated. So, it is often translated into English here as ‘sea matusake’ although I’ve also seen it as ‘dead man’s fingers’ and as ‘sea velvet’ as well as many more names. Wikipedia lists nine English names: green sea fingers, dead man's fingers, felty fingers, forked felt-alga, stag seaweed, sponge seaweed, green sponge, green fleece, and oyster thief. But I have a few more.

 

There is only a little information in English on the internet regarding this(search for the Latin name) and only a few passing mentions in Chinese. It is native to the waters around Japan and eastern China but has been introduced accidentally around the world including the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and is considered to be a troublesome invasive species. It destroys oyster beds etc, resulting in the name ‘oyster thief’. For more details on its invasiveness and spread, see here.

 

It is mostly sold dried and requires soaking for between two and three hours to rehydrate. Thereafter, it is cooked for no more than two minutes or they lose their flavour. It doesn’t like heat much. It can be eaten raw, but the locals don’t do raw, especially things they’ve never seen before.

 

Rehydrated "Sea Matsutake"

 

It tastes nothing like mushroom to me, but has a similar texture to some fungi species. Sort of firm and slightly chewy, although so do many varieties of seaweed.

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

5 hours ago, Paul Bacino said:

I picked up a sea cucumber

 

Hmmm. But sea cucumber is not a vegetable. It's an echinoderm, ie an animal.

[heidih]

as a kid I had no idea people ate seaweeds. I just enjoyed popping the balls though the swarms of sand fliues were onnoying on the washd up tangles. I first saw it as edible in a Time Life Foods of the World volume that inclised Alaska. A vivid memory of picked giamnt kelp. A quick google today  https://www.barnaclefoods.com/pages/kelp   I'd see local Japanese folk gathering a seaweed looking item off the tidal rocks along with mussels (which is now a no-no) And the neon green seaweed salad is always in the cold case next to prepared sushi and many of the prepared banchan in Korean markets use various seaweeds. Of course the diet food inductry jumped on the kelp noodle bandwagon a number of years ago. https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Tangle-Kelp-Noodles-Pack/dp/B00B7CTDPS  And I;ve seen seaweeds as long populari n Irish preps.  https://irishseaweedkitchen.ie/

 

Sadly my only regular actual eating is nori.  Must remedy that.

[liuzhou]

This is a favourite, which I have mentioned before. Sea grapes, green caviar or sea caviar. In Chinese it’s 海葡萄 (hǎi pú tao), a literal translation of ‘sea grapes’ as are うみぼど (umi-bodō), the Japanese name, mga ubas sa dagat in Filipino and nho của biển in Vietnamese. Caulerpa lentillifera to the scientific.

 

Not to be confused with the Caribbean tree named ‘seagrape’.

 

This is a bright green alga which grows only around the waters of the above named countries (those I get come from neighbouring Vietnam) where it forms strands of two to five metres and its ‘branches’ grow to about 20 mm / 8 inches carrying tiny air sacs which resemble miniature grapes. These pop audibly when it is eaten, giving it its caviar related names. This seaweed is only normally eaten raw in salads or with sushi and sashimi. They last well if covered in the brine but shouldn’t be refrigerated.

 

 

It is sold in pouches in a brine of seawater concentration. The ‘grapes’ are soaked for three minutes in fresh water and swell up. This reduces the saltiness, although some remains. For a less salty taste soak again for another three minutes. It tastes of the sea, as you would expect, and has a delicate grassy flavour, but most of the appeal is in the popping, although it is highly nutritional, being packed with minerals and vitamins A and C.

 

 

To protect itself, this species is mildly toxic, but this presents no real problems to humans when it is eaten in normal amounts. However, it advisable to avoid it during pregnancy.

Edited February 26, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liamsaunt]

One tasty sea vegetable item we have locally is sea beans, or sea asparagus.  They grow in the salt marshes near the ocean.  They have a crisp, crunchy texture and a pleasing salty flavor.  I've harvested them myself when staying on Cape Cod, and sometimes you can buy them in the store too.  They cook by just lightly blanching.  Here's an article about them: sea beans

 

I found a couple of pictures I took in restaurants.  A raw oyster topped with pickled sea beans

 

 

Wahoo topped with blanched sea beans

 

[liuzhou]

47 minutes ago, liamsaunt said:

One tasty sea vegetable item we have locally is sea beans, or sea asparagus.

 

I spent a lot of time foraging for that in Scotland as a kid, although we called it 'marsh samphire'. Very trendy now in London restaurants, although true samphire, aka rock samphire is much more valued.

I can buy it here online but at a ridiculous price, so I don't often.

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

This has me baffled. It is very common round here but there is almost no information on the internet. I can’t get into Google at the moment. China has blocked it as my looking up seaweed varieties obviously threatens the whole pillar of society. Bing is accessible, but total garbage as a search engine. They are spending too much time and money on Artificial Idiocy rather than developing a decent search engine. Chinese search engine Baidu is no better.

 

Known here as 龙须 (lóng xū, dragon’s beard) or 海石花 (hǎi shí huā, literally ‘sea stone flower’), this seaweed is in most supermarkets, usually dried but I can get it fresh online. No idea what the Latin name is. Part of the problem is that ‘dragon’s beard’ is applied as a name to so many different things from a type of noodles to a sugary dessert to a relative of seahorses.

 

Anyway, pending further investigation, here are two examples. This seaweed comes in many colours from white through green to near black. The first is the fresh green seaweed and secondly a whitish, heavily salted, dried variety. As I hope you can see, it has very fine strands hence the beard name. I have no idea what stone flowers is referring to.

 

It tastes like the sea and is salty but not unpleasantly so. The dried stuff does need a good rinsing to get rid of the salt though.

 

Fresh Dragon's Beard

 

Dried Salted Dragon's Beard. You can see the salt!

 

[MaryIsobel]

9 hours ago, liamsaunt said:

One tasty sea vegetable item we have locally is sea beans, or sea asparagus.  They grow in the salt marshes near the ocean.  They have a crisp, crunchy texture and a pleasing salty flavor.  I've harvested them myself when staying on Cape Cod, and sometimes you can buy them in the store too.  They cook by just lightly blanching.  Here's an article about them: sea beans

 

I found a couple of pictures I took in restaurants.  A raw oyster topped with pickled sea beans

 

 

Wahoo topped with blanched sea beans

 

I've had it but only in restaurants - I've never seen it sold anywhere. It's called sea asparagus around here, but whatever you call it, I love it and wish it were more accessible.

 

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, MaryIsobel said:

I've had it but only in restaurants - I've never seen it sold anywhere. It's called sea asparagus around here, but whatever you call it, I love it and wish it were more accessible.

 

 

Next time you come to Vancouver Island, you could pick some! But I think it's a summertime veggie. I've seen some seafood departments carry some of the ocean "greens", you could ask your local stores if they ever get them in. 

[liuzhou]

One of the most widely available and eaten seaweeds is Undaria pinnatifida or 裙带菜 (qún dài cài) in Chinese and わかめ (wakame) in Japanese. Sometimes known as sea mustard in English.

 

It is a type of large brown kelp, native to the western Pacific coast adjacent to Russia, China, Japan and Korea but has also become an invasive species In North America, Europe, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia.

 

Of the 30 or so existing varieties of kelp this is the most consumed.

 

Its fronds grow to about 1 metre / 40 inches long and 36 cm (15″) wide. The leaves are typically cut into strips for sale. Although it is mainly the leaves which are eaten, the stem is also edible and has a chewy, crunchy texture.

 

Fresh Wakame

 

Around the world, it is mostly sold dried or salt -preserved, but in Spring it is available fresh in China and Japan. The salted variety needs carefully rinses to remove as much salt as possible. The dried variety should be soaked for between 5 and 19 minutes to rehydrate. Wakame should not be cooked for more than one minute or it loses its nutritional value.

 

Dried Wakame

 

Wakame is added to miso soups and to しゃぶ しゃぶ (shabu-shabu), Japanese hotpot. In the west it is most often served as a salad with sesame seeds - ごま わかめ (goma wakame, meaning sesame wakame) or 冷やし わかめ (hiyashi wakame, chilled wakame) in Japanese.

 

Wakame Salad

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[Katie Meadow]

I wish I had access to the sea beans, they sound like fun. Maybe I've just overlooked them at my favorite Japanese market. Wakame seaweed salad is ubiquitous here,  and is often sold in containers alongside prepared packaged nigiri / sushi. I love the crunch but it is very salty and gets stuck in my teeth as do the sesame seeds that accompany it. I like it as a garnish for fish or shrimp cakes.

 

Have we mentioned kombu yet? An essential ingredient for dashi, a simple soup base, it is a thick rubbery kelp. I suspect it  would take a lot of prep to make it chewable on its own. I know two things about kelp. One is that it is crucial to the health of the CA coast and is endangered. The other is that I get nauseous and dizzy watching the kelp forest display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and then have to go sit down. All the creatures that live in the kelp must have good balance. The swaying of the kelp must help them keep safe from predators who get woozy enough to lose their appetite.

 

Then there's dulse, a red algae. A zillion years ago I had a roommate who was obsessed with various health foods and went on a long dulse kick. I got good and sick of it, I have to say, and haven't had it since. I think about her every time I see a package. I'm a little unclear on the difference between seaweed and algae but I believe one of them falls under the category of the other. I'd rather have the answer from @liuzhouas he's more fun than google. I'm sure there are many more edible kinds of both.

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, Katie Meadow said:

I'm a little unclear on the difference between seaweed and algae but I believe one of them falls under the category of the other.

 

Seaweed is saltwater algae. It has most species, but there are also freshwater algae and a few aerial species.

 

I'll get to kombu. I wanted to get some of the less well-known ones out of the way, first.

[liuzhou]

 

The second most common culinary seaweed eaten in Japan after wakame is what is known in the west as as ‘kombu’ but is more correctly 昆布 (konbu). In Chinese it is 海带 (hǎi dài) or, less often 翅藻 (chì zǎo) and in Korean 다시마 (dasima). There are around 30 varieties of kelp in the Laminariaceae family, but only eighteen are regularly eaten. The favoured variety in Japan, China and Korea is Saccharina japonica, formerly classed as Laminaria japonica) and known in Japan as ま 昆布 (ma konbu).

 

The vast majority of the kelp harvested in Japan is done so around Hokkaido island in the north (accounting for around 95%). However, China is the largest producer by far.

 

The kelp grows in large ‘kelp forests’ and in ideal circumstances, can grow to 45 metres / 150 ft tall, with some species growing 27 to 60 cm / 10 to 24 inches per day.

 

Not only do the kelp forests provide us with highly nutritional fodder, they offer protection and a diverse ecosystem to the many life forms which shelter within. Algae, fish and shrimp all take advantage, some living there all their lives. Others only use them as nursery areas for their young.

 

So how is kelp used? Much more than you might think. Even if you’ve never knowingly eaten it, you probably have ingested some at some point. It is used in toothpaste as a binding agent. You may have washed your hair with it! And if you are a fan of ranch dressing or common breakfast cereals, you’ve eaten it. It is used as a binder there, too. It is a good source of calcium for us oldies and vitamin K doesn’t go amiss either. It is also low in calories and, most importantly, it tastes good!

 

Kelp forests are under threat from rising sea temperatures and storms like El Nino wreak huge damage. Australia, for example, has been reported as losing more than 60 miles of forest to rising temperatures.

 

Dried konbu is famously used in Japan to make 出汁, だし, dashi. Its strong (うま味) unami taste helped in identifying that ‘fifth taste’ and the development of monosodium glutamate (MSG). It is also pickled (す 昆布 su konbu).

 

Here in China, in the supermarkets, it comes in what look like sheets of ancient leather (first image) but we can find it in more manageable pieces – both fresh and dried. Short pieces are tied into very popular kelp knots which are used in soups, hotpots, and cooked salads. It is also sold cut into strips like noodles.

Fresh Konbu Knots

Dried Konbu Knots

Konbu Knot Salad

 

Konbu "Noodles"

 

Kelp is also pickled and sold in small packets as a snack food.

 

Pickled Konbu

 

Pickled Konbu

 

Parts of this appeared before in the Guangxi Gastronomy topic

Edited June 13 by liuzhou (log)

[TicTac]

Cool topic - thanks for sharing.

 

But now I must find out if I share any relation to Kathleen - another Baker (from England - where we hail) and one who has ties to.....SUSHI!?  Oh boy, this is exciting....a potential relative who paved the way for one of my favourite foods! 

[liuzhou]

Women Gathering Seaweed by Katsukawa Shunko, 18th Century - PD

Of the top three most consumed seaweeds in Japan we come to the third after wakame and konbu, and which is probably also the most well-known in the west. But as we will see, it is not exclusive to Japan or Japanese cuisine.

 

Nori (Japanese 海苔) originally and historically just meant seaweed but by around the 17th century, by a process linguists call ‘narrowing’ became restricted to members of the Porphyra family. In common usage in Japan it usually refers to P. tenera.  In English, it is usually called ‘laver’.

 

Nori was originally eaten as a paste until, around 1750, it began to be made into sheets using paper making techniques.

 

The nori industry in Japan was in decline after WWII due to the seaweed being foraged from the wild and to its often being damaged by typhoons and other storms etc. Also, just as importantly there was little understanding of the life cycle of porphrya so there was no successful cultivation of nori farms.

 

Around the same time and before, Kathleen Mary Drew-Baker, an English scientist from Manchester was studying P. umbilicus, another member of the same family which to this day is gathered in Wales and parts of England as well as Ireland and consumed in the same manner as what we now know as nori.

 

Her most significant finding was that porphyra requires bivalves and their shells in the initial stages to be able to develop. She also determined that egg shells could be used instead of the bivalves. Her 1949 published paper was picked up by Japanese scientists and by 1952 Fusao Ota and others had developed artificial seeding techniques, which rescued the entire nori industry. Drew-Baker, known in Japan as Kassurine-San, never visited Japan, but she is still honoured there as “Mother of the Sea“. Each year on April 14th there is a Drew Festival in Uto, Kumamoto where there is a shrine to her memory. Every year garlands of nori of that year's crop are placed around the shrine. Whether she ever ate sushi is not recorded!

 

In the 1960s and 1970s nori became more available in the west due to the hippie-favoured macrobiotic diet and the growth in the popularity of Japanese restaurants.

 

Nori is, of course, used to wrap sushi rolls and お握り (rice balls) but is also served with noodle soup dishes or toasted and seasoned to be eaten as a snack food. It also flavours other snack foods such as crackers and even Lay's have their use.

 

Dried Seasoned Nori

 

 

 

In China, nori is known as 紫菜 (zǐ cài), literally ‘purple vegetable’ and is often used in soups. The seaweed and egg soup on your local Chinese restaurant menu often contains this.

 

It is formed into dried flying-saucer shaped discs and sold in most supermarkets. China also goes down the snack route the same way as Japan.

 

 

Chinese seaweed and egg soup

 

In Korea, the favoured porphyra is P. yezoensis although they use other varieties, too. It is referred to as 김 (gim, kim). They also have popular snacks using 'gim'.

 

 

Back in Drew-Baker’s land, P. umbilicalis is gathered around the shores of Welsh, Western English and Irish waters, boiled for hours and made into paste balls which are then coated In oatmeal and fried. The resulting laverbread (sometimes written as lava bread); Welsh: bara lafwr or bara lawr; Irish: sleabhac. This is traditionally eaten for breakfast along with bacon and cockles. It is high in protein, iron and especially iodine.

 

Laverbread and toast - PD

 

Dried nori should always be stored in a cool dry place preferably with a dessicant.

 

 

This jar contains nori slices and a large box of dessicant at its base.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by liuzhou
added image (log)

[liuzhou]

 

These are sold as 天然海笋 (tiān rán hǎi sǔn), which means ‘Natural Sea Bamboo’. However, a search for sea bamboo on the internet in English or Chinese returns several answers, none of which fit these. One option offered is Sea Bamboo (Ecklonia maxima) 南极海笋 (nán jí hǎi sǔn, literally South Pole sea  bamboo), but that only seems to grow around South Africa making it an unlikely candidate and anyway, it doesn’t look the same. Another appears only around Chile. Those results concerning animal species are definitely ruled out

 

So, no positive identification, for now.

 

These little tubes seem to be the stems of a young variety of kemp which have been dried and chopped into approximately 6 cm / 2.4 inch pieces. They are rock hard when purchased and require 3 hours soaking to rehydrate them, after which they expand to around 8 cm / 3.2 inches.

 

Dried Sea Bamboo

 

The rehydrated stems are slimy to the touch but that disappears on cooking. They remain slightly firm on the teeth. The tubes areadded to soups and hotpots and can also be stir fried.

 

Rehydrated

 

According to the packaging

 

Quote

“Sea bamboo shoots are collected from the deep sea at an average temperature of 4℃. The seaweed essence contained in them is higher than that of ordinary algae. Sea bamboo shoots are rich in collagen, calcium, iodine, protein and amino acids. The taste is tender and dense and the nutrition is easily absorbed by the human body.”

 

(My translation)

 

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[shain]

On 2/28/2023 at 10:54 AM, liuzhou said:

 

I love cooked kombu. But it's really expensive here   

[liuzhou]

Ulva lactuca, Sea lettuce (sometimes known as sea spinach or sea cabbage), grows in oceans around the world and is probably the most widely distributed of all edible seaweeds. The variety found in the N.E. Atlantic is considered by some to be a different genus, Ulva fenestrata but agreement on that is absent.

 

Whatever we get in Scotland is used in salads and in soups, whereas in Korea (both) it is used to make a version of 김치 – kimchi.

 

I’m told it is also popular in Hawaii where it may also appear in soups or salted with raw fish. Etc.

 

In China, where it is known as 海莴苣 (hǎi wō jù, sea lettuce) or in the packets illustrated here 海菠菜 (hǎi bō cài, sea spinach) or 石莼 (shí chún) it leans more to the Korean treatment. This lot comes from near the North Korean – Chinese border. It is pickled with spices and sold as a snack food.

 

 

 

Less often, I see it fresh.

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Looking forward to cooking with these sea beans, already mentioned above by several people, but a new item for me and the first time I've seen them at my local farmers market. 

They are foraged and were being sold by Murray Family Farms who come down to our market from Bakersfield, not exactly a coastal town 🙃.  I'll ask them for more deets next week. 

 

My plan is to try the recipe for sand dabs with shallots, sea beans and sherry vinegar from Zuni Cafe Cookbook.  I'll use Pacific grenadier that I got in my fish share this week instead of the sand dabs. 

Prue Leith includes a recipe for mussels and sea beans in a toasted bread bowl in Bliss on Toast so I'll try that if I can track down some mussels. 

Zuni also has a recipe for pickling them simply in white wine vinegar so I'll do that with whatever's left. 

 

[BonVivant]

Looks like what we call samphire. I eat it all the time, usually with fish or shellfish, but it's also nice with eggs, boiled potatoes and rice dishes (risotto, "paella" etc). When buying something from a fishmonger I always get 100-200 grams samphire to go with my fishy meals. Salty and briny. Goes well with all things from the sea.

 

I just toss it briefly in hot fat (of choice). Or blanch (and shock in ice water). I also like it cooked in cream or add to something creamy. Must not be exposed to heat too long or it'll turn unsightly brown. Do not add any salt to your food as the samphire is salty enough.

 

You can also pickle samphire (not for me, common on Balearic islands). Results in a loss of colour, taste and the crunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love sea vegetables. There are many kinds of sea veg in Japan and a small amount is added to certain dishes on Okinawa islands. Every. meal.

 

But none is this pretty. "Caviar seaweed", I've only seen and eaten this on Okinawa islands.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by BonVivant (log)

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, BonVivant said:

Looks like what we call samphire.

 

2 hours ago, BonVivant said:

"Caviar seaweed", I've only seen and eaten this on Okinawa islands.

 

Yes, we discussed both of these upthread.

 

The caviar seaweed, Caulerpa lentillifera, is found around Japan, but also in China, Vietnam and the Philippines. I always have some on hand.

Edited May 26, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

Quote

Seaweed could avert food crisis caused by extreme weather

 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/may/26/seaweed-could-avert-food-crisis-extreme-weather